« Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 1 today (and 5 NFP) | Main | Ind. Courts - Even more on: Wisconsin's diploma privilege under attack »

Friday, March 26, 2010

Courts - New DC gun laws tested under Heller standard [Updated again]

In Heller v. DC, in 2008, the SCOTUS reinterpreted the 2nd amendment and invalidated DC gun laws. Now the District has tried again, and, as Lyle Denniston reports this afternoon in SCOTUSblog, has met with success at the district court level. Here is a brief quote from the entry:

Courts around the country have differed on what level of review should apply to gun regulation, and that issue thus is a likely one for future Supreme Court analysis. The Justices did not lay down a standard in 2008, other than to say it would take more than simple “reasonable” justification to satisfy the Second Amendment.
Another issue, whether Heller applies to the states, or only to the District of Columbia and other federal entities, is pending this term before the SCOTUS.

[Updated 3/27/10] "Federal judge upholds D.C. gun regulations; appeal expected" is the headline of a story today in the Washington Post, reported by Maria Glod. Some quotes:

A federal judge on Friday upheld the gun laws that the District of Columbia passed to comply with the landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling that struck down the city's decades-old ban on handgun possession.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina found that the new regulations were crafted to make the streets safer and aren't so restrictive that they violate the Second Amendment guarantee of a person's right to own a gun for self-defense.

"It is beyond dispute that public safety is an important -- indeed, a compelling -- governmental interest," Urbina wrote.

The judge ruled that the District's handgun registration process, which requires owners to submit fingerprints and allow police to perform ballistics tests, is constitutional. He also upheld a city ban on most semiautomatic pistols. * * *

In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down the District's long-standing ban on handgun possession. The court concluded that the Second Amendment grants individuals the right to possess guns for self-defense but said governments may impose reasonable restrictions. * * *

In the 30-page opinion, Urbina said that the regulations aren't unduly burdensome and that the city provided "ample evidence of the ways" the registration requirements are intended to promote public safety. He noted, for instance, that authorities said the required ballistics tests will help them link bullets and shell casings found at crime scenes to the weapons used to fire them.

[Updated again 3/29/10]An article today by Tony Mauro of The National Law Journal concludes:
D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles offered this written statement in reaction to the ruling: "I am gratified that the Court repeatedly recognized the reasonable and conscientious efforts that the Council and the Mayor made to strike the proper balance between addressing the legitimate rights of firearm owners, and taking every reasonable action to assure the safety of the District's residents and visitors."

Heller's lawyer Stephen Halbrook said on Friday that the decision was disappointing, and "I'd be surprised if we don't appeal." Halbrook, a Virginia lawyer and Second Amendment scholar, commented that even though Urbina said he was using an intermediate level of scrutiny in appraising the D.C. law, he was in fact overly deferential toward the city. "He repeated uncritically whatever the [D.C. Council] committee report said." Halbrook also said the ultimate fate of the D.C. ordinance may depend in part on what the Supreme Court says about how fundamental the right to bear arms is in the pending case of McDonald v. City of Chicago.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 26, 2010 03:18 PM
Posted to Courts in general